I’m a little late but since I originally didn’t want to do this I guess this is better than nothing. I guess I knew I’d do it but it won’t be something consistent. It comes out on Wed, doesn’t it? That doesn’t work well on my schedule so if I did try to write something- y’know what, I’ll just get on with it. If you are new with the anime and have not played the VN, mega spoilers within this post. You won’t be warned again. Kihihihi, said it in red! Said it in red- *beaten by Rosa*

From the first images released I had a bad feeling about this. Granted, I really dislike anime adaptions (and I still can’t accept they didn’t make the series into movies). I don’t like when things get too popular (well isn’t that an understatement?) so I wanted to be negative about this. If you notice that tone to this please excuse me. I’m being unfair, really. This is like when your friend goes out with someone you dislike but someone that makes them happy, you can’t do anything about it so you have to be happy for them, riiight? (I’ll stop talking like that)

Starting off: the OP. While it’s no Umineko no Naku Koro ni we can be grateful Akiko Shikata came back to do this. It would have been lame if she hadn’t. And compared to that ending… well it’s practically godlike, right? Although I’m sure there are some that the ED is just up their alley. Speaking content wise at that… well. If I had to guess (I don’t know how many episodes there are supposed to be) we’d see up to the start of Episode 3. But that’s just a guess because we only see a little bit of Eva being evil and stuff and we see a lot more of episode 2 (granted, I can’t remember what part Eva really played in ep2 other than that part with Shannon, pre-1983 Rokkenjima). A second season goes without saying so maybe Episode 3 would be split? That just sounds stupid. And I don’t know how many games there are supposed to be. Six? Since we can’t be sure if it’ll follow the Higu route and have the answer arcs and question arcs (the games have hardly ever identified themselves as such) so if they do we should expect 8 games? Although there wasn’t very much indication that the fourth episode would be feautred in this first season. I just hope we don’t get more than five episodes per… episode. That’ll just bore it up for me. I’m a fanatic, so sue me. I’d rather take ten episodes per game episode than anime only information. Now let’s just show us how they plan to do red text, okay? I guess we can only make assumptions from what we see in Battler’s part of the OP? That was my impression. I’m not going to lie. I was too busy getting excited at the parents being awesome (I’ll ruin this for you now, Krauss is the best parent). Beatrice, however, doesn’t look as awesome as she was in the game. Although it appears we’ll get some crazy badass expressions and that’s only from seeing Maria.

Maria looks like a fish. I’m glad they kept that Kumasawa joke in. That made me lol. But I’m supposed to be sullen and negative so I lol’d sullen and negatively. Although for maximum success, if the Maria breast joke would have been kept in- ah, I’m not even going to finish that sentence.

The voices were very important to the community, I remember that clearly. Because we had to leave everything up to interpretation (well, as much as you can interpret a characters voice) so some might agree some sound as they imagined and some didn’t. It’s easier for me to list characters I thought sounded as I’d imagined. None more well done than Eva. A very fitting voice, right? But that is just my interpretation. It was hard defending Rie Kumigiya as Shannon and I feel I can safely say ‘told ya so~ told ya so~’ now. The same could be said for the mansion and the other buildings? Ah well. I really wish the original game music would have been kept in (miragecoordinator, goldenslaughterer, Worldend_dominator and dreamenddischarger, amirite?) but some of the original game effects were so… that was good?

Story wise, we don’t waste time. We jump straight to the boat and just have Battler introduce us to everyone there rather than at the airport. We waste even less time and get right to going to eat lunch. It may just seem to take longer because during the VN we are exposed to a lot of extra information from Battler. We get a little background history but only the basics. We want to get to the good stuff quickly, don’t we? Lunch is had and the adults meet. The Natsuhi and Eva fight is always one of my favorite scenes, possibly from all four episodes. If you hadn’t guessed, I love Natsuhi and hate Eva. So. Yeah. But basically, Eva is bitchy and upsets Natsuhi, their hostess (one could say), as her husband has very little interest in the conference while Natsuhi holds the responsibility with high regard. Believing Eva is disrespecting the Ushiromiya family and the One-Winged Eagle, Natsuhi orders Eva to leave. However this does not go well because Eva is a bitch won’t take orders or disrespect from someone of such a lower status than her. Eva claims that Natsuhi has no right to order her around and is only used to bare the next heir. Krauss asks his wife to leave (which upsets her even more) and Natsuhi runs away crying. Which made Fang-tan a very sad girl. Kumasawa observes from afar the crying Natsuhi and feels pity for her.

We’re back to Battler and the cousins looking at the Epitaph. But, of course, Battler believes it’s garbage. And then- HOSHIT, witch_in_gold(cembalo) by zts plays. Well. I nearly hit the floor. I had thought something sounded familiar before. So even if there are a lot of new tracks mixed in… if some game tracks could make it in… ah~ if I could hear Happiness of Marionette, I’d eat my foot for ever doubting this series~~ but *ahem* where was I? George tells the story of the story of how Kinzo got the gold and got the ten tonnes of gold. Kinzo told them he met the witch Beatrice who took his soul in exchange for wealth and fame. Which is how he got all the gold. Then Battler makes the crucial mistake. His words exactly are along the lines of something like: “how could something like witches exist?” which pisses Maria right the hell off (well not really). So then we get som uu, uu-ing. Which, really isn’t that cute. Horie Yui was cute as Hanyuu but I just find Maria annoying. At Least she’ll pull off the ‘witch’ side well.

We go back to the parents and their thirst for money. Rudolf, Hideyoshi and Eva lay down conditions for Krauss (as Kinzo’s caretaker). They want him to admit he’s found Kinzo’s hidden gold, they want a portion of the gold, the heir will receive 50% of the gold, the rest goes to the siblings, the gold is distributed at the time of Kinzo’s death but they require a 10% deposit now and the rest must be paid before March of next year. Which would mean more than 12 billion to his side of the family and the siblings would only receive 2.5 billion each and with the 10% deposit, 700 million upfront. However, Krauss isn’t a fool. He calls out his siblings on the financial trouble they are all having. Krauss (lies and) says he has about as much money as they do and can’t help them out. He jokes that they should work together and try to solve the epitaph and find Beatrice’s gold. In reality, he has already found it.

Back to the cousins on the beach. The older cousins remark surprise at how seriously Maria takes Beatrice and the epitaph. However they mock the witch again and make Maria mad. Maria is sure that they will make Beatrice mad and gives them the scorpion bracelets. Which are pretty important because they are from Maria. (Doesn’t one also help Ange later on?) The cousins head back because the typhoon is starting up. As they pass through the rose garden, Jessica tries to help Maria find the rose George had marked for her previously but they have no luck. Maria notices Rosa and calls for her to come help. Maria continues uu, uu-ing and ticks Rosa off. Rosa starts hitting and slapping Maria because she doesn’t stop (crying Natsuhi was better) and Maria becomes more increasingly annoying. The cousins know they can’t do anything because it is business within their family so they shouldn’t intrude. Even so, Battler tries to intervene but Rosa simply gets mad and replies that Maria acts too childishly for her age and that it’s embarrassing. The cousins return inside so that Maria and her mother can deal with their problem themselves. But Rosa runs out of patience and returns inside, leaving Maria alone in the garden. However, a single gold butterfly can be seen flying around the roses.

The storm starts up and Kinzo starts the ceremony. He calls out to Beatrice to start and throws family ring (the ring that only the head of the family can possess) into the garden.

Maria is still searching for her rose, in the downpour, when Beatrice appears with her umbrella and to start shit within the family with her letter.

Kanon comes to the guesthouse to retrieve the three cousins when he notices Maria is missing, when he asks her whereabouts the cousins explain they thought she was with Rosa. Kanon tells them that he thought she was with them. They each come to the conclusion that she is still in the rose garden in the middle of the typhoon. They rush out to the garden and find Rosa searching for Maria too. Battler finds her and Rosa runs to her daughter, crying and apologizing to Maria that it was her fault she was left out alone.

Jessica says she is happy Maria at least brought an umbrella. Maria claims she borrowed it. Everyone is shocked to hear that Maria borrowed the umbrella from Beatrice.

Overall? It was nowhere as fun as the game. The game had a lot going on. It felt creepy, there was suspense, there was more chemistry between the cousins (imo). The art doesn’t compare to the game. Which sounds weird but the game had character. The anime seems… generic to me. BUT I have to give points for the use of game music. I hope we get more from it because the other music seemed generic. I’ll probably watch some more because it looks like maybe we could see someone dying by the end of this next episode.

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2 Comments

Beatrice

May 26, 2010

I watched the anime first and then the Visual Novel. I did that because I thought that the visual novel would be too dragged out and all. However, once I finished watching the anime, I read the Visual Novel. I must say, I fudging loved the anime, but after reading the Visual Novel, I was rather disappointed. I agree with most of what you said. ;P

I sort of hope what happened to Higurashi happens here. The first season wasn’t handled well, left out all sorts of things but the next season, with all the answer arcs (more or less) was down superbly. Hopefully we can see that happening when the anime of the answer arcs ever comes out. Perhaps that art will have been upgraded too, hopefully.